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December 11, 2014

We’re often led to believe that the most dangerous people on the planet are those with the least to lose, the gun-toting, suicide-bombing militants who will stop at nothing to burn down the world. I’ve think we’ve got it wrong. The most dangerous people in the world aren’t those with the least to lose, it’s those with the most to lose, the flag-waving, Bible-believing patriots who will stop at nothing to preserve the status quo. Yes, Bible-believing. Why these people? Because they have fused the preservation of their faith with the preservation of the state. Therefore, they view the fight against terror as a holy war. The same goes for secularism or any other force that threatens Christianity’s privileged place in society. They abide by the dictum, “Without God, all things are permissible.” Little do they realize that exactly the opposite is true. As philosopher Slavoj Zizek says,

it is for those who refer to “god” in a brutally direct way, perceiving themselves as instruments of his will, that everything is permitted. These are, of course, the so-called fundamentalists who practice a perverted version of what Kierkegaard called the religious suspension of the ethical.

I can think of no better example of a religious suspension of the ethical than the use of torture and death against our enemies.

October 02, 2014

Eleven years ago, in response to the second Iraq war, my friendBrad Jersak created T-shirts with the logo pictured to the left. I bought one immediately and wore it proudly wherever I went. One time it even got me into a bit of trouble when I (stupidly) wore it while getting onto a plane. Lesson learned.

Once it began to show some wear, it became my workout shirt, my running shirt, my “under my hockey gear” shirt and finally my paint shirt this summer when I transformed the trim on our house from green to white.

Last night while transferring my clothes to a new armoire we inherited from my brother-in-law (we inherited a dog from him around this time last year, so who knows what next October will bring), I concluded it was finally time to retire the shirt for good. Too worn, too hole-y, and too covered with paint.

I have a hard time letting go of old clothes at the best of times, but this shirt is particularly difficult to part with. In fact, as I write this, I realize it’s still sitting downstairs in the garbage, and I’m more than a little tempted to pull it back out.

It seems a particularly inopportune time to throw it out, seeing as we’re back at it again in Iraq (and Syria), but perhaps this ode to an old shirt will prompt a few more people to ask the question it poses.

READ MORE FROM KEVIN MILLER at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/hellbound/

September 17, 2014

Simple: It demands the least of us in terms of both compassion and creativity. Rather than sacrifice our time, resources, rights or comfort in an effort to resolve a conflict, violence allows us to foist the total cost of a conflict onto our enemies. Think of it as the fast food of conflict resolution. The path of least resistance. A cacophony of sugar, salt and fat that gives us a momentary shot of euphoria and sanctimony but whose long-term effects are subtle, cumulative and self-destructive.

Of course, even though our enemies bear the brunt of our violence, the residual costs of violence remain, not the least of which is the brutality it elicits in those who deploy it. But such costs are easily mitigated or deferred through technology, which allows us to remain several steps removed from the consequences of our actions, and myth-making, which helps us convince ourselves and others that although the violence of our enemies is brutal, barbaric and unprovoked, ours is surgical, minimal, and, above all, necessary for the greater good.

One might argue that violence also demands a certain level of creativity. After all, an MQ-1 Predator Drone is a far cry from a spear or a club. It is a highly sophisticated piece of technology that required several years, hundreds of millions of dollars and dozens of people to develop. However, the mental framework in which the drone is deployed hasn’t changed since the first murder–a desire to strike a blow from which there can be no reprisal. As Walter Wink says, “Violent revolution fails because it is not revolutionary enough. It changes the rulers but not the rules.”

August 08, 2014

As Stephen Pinker argues convincingly in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, our sensitivity toward victims has increased substantially over the last several centuries, leading to a drastic reduction in violence. By way of example, it’s practically impossible today for any government, organization or individual to act in a discriminatory, aggressive or violent manner before before the global community blows the whistle and cries foul. This is particularly true when a huge power imbalance exists between the two parties. As soon as word of potential discrimination or abuse of power gets out, people rally around the victim and seek to shame the aggressor into backing off. This isn’t to say victimization doesn’t still happen. But Pinker assembles a mountain of data that demonstrates not only that the number of such incidents has decreased substantially over the past few centuries, even when such situations do develop, they don’t persist for nearly as long as they once did.

To what should we credit this growing sensitivity toward victims, and its commensurate reduction in violence? Pinker spends much of his book seeking to answer exactly this question.

May 23, 2013

Back in January 2011 when I first embarked on Hellbound?, I had no idea how deeply political the idea of hell could be. For me, the film was more of a personal journey, my attempt to grapple with a concept that had both repelled and fascinated me throughout my journey as a Christian. As I’ve recounted dozens of times during interviews and Q&A sessions, it wasn’t until I witnessed the reaction to Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins, that I realized how heated this discussion could get.

The publication of Love Wins-–or, more accurately, the trailer that preceded the book’s publication–truly was a watershed moment. Although people like Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt and other members of the emergent crowd had been raising similar questions for years, somehow Bell hit the zeitgeist just right, causing an explosion of controversy. At the time, two voices struck me as particularly prescient about the implications of this debate. The first was Jimmy Spencer, Jr., who said (in a writing style reminiscent of Bell’s own),

Two planes hit the World Trade Center in New York City. Brian Williams describes the event 10 years later: "It was a day when hell rained down on earth from the skies and changed all of our lives forever..."

As these and numerous other examples demonstrate, when seeking to describe a natural disaster or manmade tragedy, hell is often the first word that springs to mind. And we don't just use "hell" to describe the event. We also demand it as punishment when human perpetrators are involved.

August 10, 2012

Thanks to a prod from Graham Ware, I’m currently reading Clark. H. Pinnock’s excellent essay The Destruction of the Finally Impenitent. Published in 1990, Pinnock’s essay critiques the “traditional” doctrine of hell as eternal torment for the wicked and argues for the (then) radical notion of Annihilationism–the belief that the “impenitent wicked suffer extinction and annihilation” rather than unending torment in hell.

Early on in the essay, Pinnock recognizes that he is embracing a minority view. Even though other prominent evangelicals, such as John Stott, were coming to similar conclusions at the time, Pinnock expresses some concerns about going public with his beliefs:

In defending the annihilation of the wicked, I realize that this is the view of a minority among evangelical theologians and church leaders and that I place myself at risk when I oppose the traditional view of hell as endless agony and torment. After all, it is a well-established tradition, and one does not oppose such a tradition without paying a price in terms of one’s reputation. Even worse, I recognize that this puts me in some odd company, a fact which is regularly used against the position I am defending, for it is usually argued that only heretics or near-heretics deny the doctrine of everlasting punishment and defend extinction. The idea is that if the Adventists or the liberals hold such a view, the view must be wrong. In this way the position can be discredited by association and not need to be taken seriously or worried about. Of course it is not much of an argument, but it proves effective with ignorant people who are taken in by rhetoric of this kind.

March 21, 2012

TEASER TRAILER RELEASE THIS WEEK OFFERS FIRST LOOK AT THIS COMPELLING AND CONTROVERSIAL FILM

Hellbound?, a much-anticipated feature-length documentary, is an in-depth look at today’s highly contentious debate over the Christian doctrine of eternal punishment. Does hell really exist, and if so, what factors determine who ends up there? The release of a teaser trailer for Hellbound? this week offers a first look at this provocative film, which will hit theaters across North America in September 2012 through a combination of major metropolitan area theatrical runs and special event screenings.

In this work evangelicals are talking to one another about the controverted question of universalism. It’s a conversation worth overhearing by the wider theological world. Indeed, the authors are much in dialogue with those reaches already, for careful attention is given to the history of the issues in the church universal, and to the contemporary debate in circles beyond, as well as within, evangelicalism. -- Gabriel Fackre

The reason that mature thinkers root and ground themselves in the fullness of the Great Tradition of Christian thought is simple yet often ignored. There is an animated and thoughtful dialogue that has taken place within the history of the ‘one, holy, catholic and apostolic church’ about a variety of perennial issues, and the means used to reach conclusions and conclusions reached are not always one and the same.

The Great Tradition has many traditions, and each tradition can, sadly so, slip into a sort of mindless traditionalism. Many are either born into a tradition or come to the faith journey within a tradition that is merely part of the Great Tradition. The danger, of course, and it is a perennial one, is that many often shrink their understanding of the Great Christian Tradition to the tradition that they assume is the fullness of faith. This is like taking a leaf on a branch on a trunk on a tree in a forest and calling the leaf, branch and tree one sits under the forest. Or, to change the metaphor, many assume the watery stream they sit beside is the only river that flows from the great ocean of faith.

March 19, 2011

Kevin Miller, best known for co-writing the controversial Ben Stein vehicle "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," takes on hell in an upcoming documentary that goes into production this summer.

PRLog (Press Release) – Mar 18, 2011 – Are any of us truly hellbound, or are we merely bound to the idea of hell? These are the questions Kevin Miller, best known as co-writer of the controversial film "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," is asking in his new feature-length documentary "Hellbound?"

“While recent challenges to the traditional view of hell are grabbing headlines, most people recognize this controversy is nothing new,” says Miller. “For centuries, people have wondered, if God is our pure, all-loving Creator, how can he allow billions of sinners to suffer for eternity in hell? Is it possible we’ve got hell wrong? Or are recent attempts to find a way around traditional teachings on hell a vain attempt to avoid the inevitable? These are the questions I want to explore.”

January 18, 2011

Not sure if you Americans are aware, but the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) just banned Dire Straits' song Money for Nothing from Canadian airwaves due to its use of the term faggot.

Never mind that the word is actually spoken by a blue collar character in the song and that its usage was meant tocriticize people who would use such inflammatory terminology in reference to homosexuals. Apparently, the CBSC feels the majority of Canadians are incapable of making this distinction. So they're going by the old adage, "If in doubt, throw it out."

I have no doubt that equally worrisome to the powers that be is the song's chorus, which contains the words "Money for nothing" and "chicks for free." Clearly if Canadian citizens actually started to believe such things, there would be blood in the streets.

Viewed from another angle, it could be that the CBSC feels that Dire Straits' song unfairly characterizes blue collar workers as rampant homophobes. So perhaps in time this will be revealed as nothing more than a publicity stunt orchestrated by the Teamsters.

Next up on the CBSC's hit list: U2's Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own. Apparently, the CBSC has determined that sometimes you CAN make it on your own, and they don't want Canadians to get the wrong idea...

February 03, 2010

Event: Canadian Premiere - With God On Our SideStart Time: 11 February at 7:00 pm.Where: Trinity Western University - Langley, BC (Northwest Auditorium)* panel discussion with the filmmakers and invited guests to follow the screeningPlace: Trinity Western University, Northwest AuditoriumFor more details: www.withgodonourside.org

July 04, 2008

David Cunningham and Kevin Miller have released their documentary about the infanticide of indigenous children in Brazil and the hope of a girl who overcame it. You can now watch or download the entire film at www.hakani.org. The movie serves to promote initiatives that protect the children but is facing opposition from elements of the Brazilian government who would like to shut it down.

January 27, 2008

Babies born into some Indian tribes in the Amazon are being buried
alive, a practice that is being covered up by the Brazilian authorities
out of respect for tribal culture. The tradition is based on beliefs that babies with any sort of physical
defect have no souls and that others, such as twins or triplets, are
also "cursed". Hakani, who lived in the forest for three years after being abandoned,
aged two, by her tribe. She was finally adopted by Marcia and Edson
Suzuki and is now attending an ordinary school